


A Far Away Shore

by liptonrm



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, Mentor/Protégé, Mentors, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-16 00:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5806180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liptonrm/pseuds/liptonrm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey waits for Luke Skywalker to make up his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Far Away Shore

After everything, Master Skywalker decided to take his time.

It seemed right to call him that, _Master_ Skywalker, a reflex Rey didn’t quite understand. But the title meant little, hardly nothing, while he sat, on a rock, meditating. Impatience grew thick in Rey’s chest.

She had stood there, his lightsaber in her hand, and he had turned and walked away. She had come all that way, so many had endured such horrible things, and none of it seemed to matter. He was intransigent, he would not be moved. He hardly even looked at her

“He wouldn’t even take the lightsaber,” she told Chewbacca on the comm that first night. The link scratchy with the blowing wind and the Falcon seemed so far away.

“Typical,” Chewbacca growled back, R2 beeping sourly in the background. “Do what you have to do, we’ll be here when you need us.”

If Skywalker thought she would leave, would give up and go back down those steep, winding steps, then he had another thing coming. If life and the galaxy had taught her anything, it was how to wait. So she took a deep breath, found a cranny out of the wind and rain, and settled in.

While she waited, she explored. The pulse of life shuddered around that peak. She could feel everything there, as if that jagged island was the center that everything on that world rotated around. She spent long hours climbing over rocks that jutted out over the churning ocean, so different from the tall dunes she had known all her life. It was different, with its cutting wind and pounding surf, but familiar in a way she could never quite place. It called to her and some deep part inside of her whispered back.

After a few days she grudgingly began to understand what had drawn Master Skywalker to that place. The Force flowed everywhere. She was new to recognizing it, the pull that surrounded her, the lights that blinked behind her eyelids, but it radiated everywhere, inside and out. Every rock, every rodent and windblown bit of sea grass, called to her. Soon she found herself sitting for long hours, eyes closed, reaching out, touching everything with limbs she never realized she had. She started to understand how these feelings had shaped her every living moment. The Force had been there on Jakku, too, it had warned her of the worst dangers, nudged her in directions she, otherwise, would not have gone.  
She remembered being little and made of thirst. She had craved water with everything inside of her tiny body. Water was a reward that only productive work could claim. She had tried, oh, how she had tried, but every wreck she found had been picked over by hundreds before her. She was hungry, yes, but the thirst consumed her, body and soul.

At her most desperate moment, when her hair was brittle and she could barely stand, something, some undeniable instinct, had pulled her out into the desert. She had dug and dug and dug until she found it, an old emergency kit lost to the wind and the sand. Inside were some rations, almost gone to dust in their packs, and a canteen of the dustiest, most wonderful water she had ever drunk.  
She kept that canteen. And, after that, she always had water, no matter what. Now she knew she had the Force to thank for that.

There were things she’d always known, feelings deep in her heart; she was connected to everything, every part of life was a tapestry and she was a thread in it. Finn was another thread, far  
away and still sleeping on D’Qar, but radiating as strong as a star. BB-8 and other bright threads surrounded him, helped him, cared for him. Finn was home and she ached to go back.

Other parts of the tapestry also called to her, parts that sucked light in like a black hole’s greedy heart. They scared her because she recognized them, knew the pull of anger, the bone deep desire to hurt and to kill. She had scrabbled all her life only to dig up scraps and she had hated, oh, how she had hated, the ones who kept her down, who abandoned her and left her alone.

It came to her, one wild morning, a whisper turned to a drowning wave. She was deep in the tapestry when it hit, showering her in memories, her own and those of people she would never know. There was so much pain, so much anger. She screamed and fought and tore, her enemies dead around her. It would be so easy to hurt others the way she had been hurt, to make the universe pay for every hungry night, for every sandblasted day, she could take it all back and more.

And the worst part, the most terrifying realization, was that it was all familiar, this pain, this anger, this fierce violence. She couldn’t run from it, couldn’t deny it. It was her.

At that worst moment, her soul adrift on dark, seething tides, she heard Maz Kanata’s voice, remembered her words from so long ago. Light bloomed inside of her, alongside the dark. The two were intertwined within her, tied so close that she couldn’t unravel one without losing the other. But it was hers to choose, whether to radiate or engulf, to share or to take. There were so many paths before her, and it was hers to decide which one she would take.

She chose.

When she opened her eyes Master Skywalker was there. He crouched beside her, a twinkle in his eyes and a soft smile on his face.

“It’s time to go home,” he finally said.


End file.
